


Brushfire

by Moonboot



Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Feelings Realization, Jealous Tim Bradford, Like damn I love her, Protective Tim Bradford, Rookie/T.O., Tim dreams of Lucy too, Tim has feelings, Tim is realizing things, Tucy, Worried Tim Bradford, chenford, the rookie - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonboot/pseuds/Moonboot
Summary: Takes place during 2x13 "Follow-Up Day". After Tim is told he could have a Sergeant's position in two weeks time. He does some major thinking that night. Can he leave Lucy? Does he want to?
Relationships: Chenford - Relationship, Tim Bradford & Lucy Chen, Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen, Tucy - Relationship
Comments: 24
Kudos: 109





	Brushfire

Ever since I found out about that post in North Hollywood, my mind has been spinning. I threw my keys onto my kitchen table and paced. I should have been over the moon. I have wanted to be a Sergeant for years. I had been dreaming of this moment. But hearing that news instantly filled me with dread. Lucy. Could I leave her? Every cell in my body was screaming against it in that moment. I can’t think about anything else, I can’t come up with a solution for Nevin’s gang situation because I can’t stop thinking about how terrified I am to leave Lucy. How it fills me with anxiety and also makes me feel like I have already lost her. Dammit, focus Bradford! There is a real problem that needs solving, someone’s life and business are being threatened and **you** can’t stop thinking about the girl you like. I need a shower and I need to figure this out. Where did this begin? I need to go through it moment by moment. When did I become such a goner? When did I put her above my own career? I stepped into the shower and let the hot water soothe my tense muscles. 

I know when things first substantially shifted for me. The moment she walked into the weight room and revealed she had taped those sergeant exam books... she became precious to me. Precious in a way I think I always knew she would, but was in that moment confirmed. I would never let anything happen to her. In that moment I saw that she cared for me. More than a normal Rookie/T.O. relationship. The care that went into what she had done was overwhelming. Figuring out the way I learn, verifying it with Isabel, then spending hours reading it aloud for me? No one had ever done anything like that for me. Un-prompted and with nothing to gain from it. Sure, Isabel would read aloud for me when I was in school, but it was always begrudgingly. The goddamn tenderness I felt as she was walking away from me... the undeniable shift in my feelings toward “Uh-oh I’m in trouble.”

I could think back to a million other moments between the two of us. The way she has slowly softened me. Riding around together, the ease of our partnership. The way she has my back. We just click. The way she doesn’t take my shit, I adore her for that. I originally wanted to make her terrified of me, in the beginning, when my life was falling apart, my wife spiraling into drugs. Patrolling was the only thing getting me through it, so I was going to make sure that whatever Rookie was thrown my way was going to take it as seriously as I did. If they didn’t, then good riddance. I remain tough on Lucy because I know she’s **it**. I know she can be an even better cop than me. I know she has the drive, intelligence and heart to become one of the best police officers in LA. I believe in her so strongly that I won’t let her slack. I won’t let her be less than I know she is. Which is greatness. I don’t want anyone else to help guide her. She will get there regardless, but I’ll be damned if I’m not there right beside her. I turned off the shower, stepped out and threw on a towel. 

Another crucial moment in the shift of my feelings: When Sergeant Grey revealed that Chen scored a 91 on her Rookie exam. I was glowingly proud of her. She is whip smart and to hear her score read aloud in front of everyone made my heart soar for her. I **know** how smart she is, now everyone else in that room did as well. She is more than qualified for this job, and she belongs here. It was also the first moment I thought _“Mine."_ Now that had been alarming, but as long as I’m being honest, I had come to think of her that way long before that.

Then there was the blatant jealousy. When that psychopath dared show his face at the station. When he waltzed in to give Lucy his number. The rage. The jealous rage that seized me. I hated every stupid word he dared send her way. There was no way I was letting him hand her a damn thing. I wished I had the power to combust that strip of paper to dust before she had a chance to see it. I realized in the moment that the jealousy was plain as day on my face, but I couldn’t contain it. Once I had handed over the phone number and Lucy was headed toward the women’s locker room, I realized how unacceptable my behavior had been. I walked into the nearest bathroom, opened a stall door and slammed it shut. “Pull it together! You can’t act like that, Lucy isn’t your girlfriend. You see her as yours, but what you’re feeling isn’t appropriate, or fair to her. Cut. The. Shit.” My reaction to my jealously was the reason I told her to go out with him. I wanted her to think I was completely cool with her going out with another man. _Sure, go have fun.. jealous? Me? No way! I’m telling you to go see the guy, how could I be jealous?_

I pushed her right at him. Because I can’t handle my own shit, she got hurt. The one thing I told myself I would NEVER let happen to her did and all because of me! No amount of anyone telling me different will change how I feel about it. If I hadn’t pushed her to go, she wouldn’t have and none of this would have happened to her. She was drugged, kidnapped, tied to a chair, beaten and then buried alive and left for dead. Saying those words makes my chest tighten. Even thinking them makes my hands ball into fists and my heart starts to race. I want to eviscerate anything that would **THINK** to harm her. 

When she was missing, I was inconsolable. I was _barely_ keeping it together. Every small thing, every small step we took towards finding her wasn't enough. Nothing we did was enough. My girl was out there. She was scared. She was alone and we weren't working _fast enough._ I can't tell you how many walls I punched that day, to keep myself from falling apart. To keep it together in front of everyone else. I was glad when Nolan emerged from that farmhouse in the middle of nowhere saying Caleb was dead. I was terrified of what I would do if I saw him, terrified I wouldn’t leave him alive long enough for him to tell us where she was. My Boot. My World.

Then, sunlight catching metal. That ring. That pretty ring she always wears. It was like Lucy was calling out to me using sunlight as her guide. I knew she was there and all I could think was DIG! DIG! DIG! SHE NEEDS YOU. When I pulled her out and she wasn’t breathing? Nope. Fuck that. In no universe was she not going to draw breath. And no one else but me was going to give it back to her. Her breath, her life. She gasped awake and I realize now I didn’t even register the others around me. She was alive, and I was holding her and I would continue to do so as long as they would let me. They took her from me to place her on a stretcher. I never let them take her out of my sight. I rode in the ambulance with her to the hospital, she held my hand the entire time. She doesn't know she did, she subconsciously reached out and grabbed it, not knowing it was mine. I stood outside her room while the doctors examined her. One doctor mistook me for her husband, an error I neither confirmed nor denied. Once they allowed me into her room I never left it. Looking at her bruised and cut up face would infuriate me and then I would calm listening to her deep dreamy breaths. I had GrubHub deliver from the burger place she loves because I knew she would be hungry. When she did wake, I tried SO hard to play it cool. _Oh, you're up? Yeah, I knew you would be fine. Wasn't worried a lick about you, Boot. Been here all night? Me? No way, just arrived. Yeah RIGHT, Bradford._ She saw right through me. And had we been left alone any longer than we were I might have said something that I wouldn't have been able to take back. My emotions were brimming over and I was still deeply imbedded in the adrenaline I had felt when she was gone. 

I had fallen asleep for a short period of time next to her the night before. I dreamt we were sitting together in a Jeep, near a cliff face overlooking the ocean on a bright, sunny day. She was wearing a white spaghetti-strap dress and she was sitting on my lap, facing me. I was kissing every inch of her I could, while slowly pulling one of her straps off her shoulder and down her arm. I could feel the heat coming from her and the goosebumps on her arms. I could feel her pressing herself into me. We were kissing in between smiling and giggling into each other's mouths. I awoke to the sound of one of the hospital monitor's beeps and cursed the stupid piece of junk. I also awoke to the realization that I was in deep. 

Nolan walked in and saved me a lot of embarrassment. Even though I wanted to immediately tell her I found her ring, I had also wanted to keep it. I wanted something of hers. I had turned it over in my hand countless times the night before while I watched her sleep. I had become slightly attached to it, seeing as it was the thing that led me to her. But she needed to know that she saved herself. Dropping that ring was a stroke of genius in a terrifying moment. I needed to give it back so she could remember her strength and her courage. So she could look down at it everyday and say “Thank you” to herself.

When she came back to work and Detective Harper asked to take her from me I almost flat-out denied it, but in the end I knew she would help. I needed to find a way to see how she was doing though. I kept thinking who else can I ask about her? Who else is spending time with her? Who else can help me keep an eye on her? When I finally had a second with her- it felt in that moment like I could lose her again so quickly. It was her first day back and she was already dodging bullets. I wanted her far away from those things. I could lose her to so many different scenarios. I could lose her if she couldn’t get past this. I said: “If you need anything, let me know” what I meant was: “If you need _me_ there let me know.” When she asked me if I had a time machine, it took everything in me to not go to her and hold her. God, I wanted to hold her in my arms and shield her from every bad thing she ever felt.

The moment before Sergeant Grey divulged the results of my Sergeant's exam, I panicked. Very quickly. My eyes darting In Lucy’s direction. What if I did poorly? I didn’t want her to hear that. Once he spilled the beans I was flooded with relief, eight out of 140? Hell yes! Then, the most glorious thing happened, Lucy’s beaming face turned towards mine and the words “Yes! I knew it!” flew out of her gorgeous mouth. In that moment I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms for a deep, long kiss. Had Sergeant Grey not been there, I might have not been able to control myself. The swell of pride on her face made me want to push her against a wall, taste her lips against mine and never come up for air again. 

SHIT. Rachel. Here I am, getting lost in my emotions for my partner when I have a flesh and blood girlfriend. Rachel is great too. In a different scenario, a different life perhaps, she would have been perfect for me. She is smart, sexy and knows when to push me. But I don't feel one iota for Rachel what I feel for Lucy. 

When I was growing up, my grandparents lived in Washington. I would visit every summer and every now and again a brush fire would start. They were fairly common in that state and they never got out of hand and were easy to put out. I thought what I felt for Lucy was the same thing at first. A brush fire, something easily contained. A minor crisis before the wildfire takes over. I was quickly realizing how wrong I was. I thought after my wife I wouldn’t be able to trust a woman again. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to ever open up again. When I’m with Lucy all I feel now is how deeply I love her. She has filled in my entire heart. I don’t care what forbidden emotion I show her. Since I can’t directly tell her how I feel, I’m going to get as close as possible so she knows that every single word I say to her is meant to be loving. I know I have to hold back, keep my guard up, I’m her T.O. after all, and her superior officer. I can't take advantage of that situation. But everyday it is getting harder and harder to hide the depth of my feelings. After so many years of patrolling, I finally decide to make moves, to take the sergeants exam, better myself, become something greater and fuck it-I know in my heart that need be, I would give it all up for her, but I can’t bring myself to say those words out loud. So for now, she and everyone else will think I am just sticking around to finish the task I was given. Train the Boot. Train The Boot, but certainly do not fall in love with The Boot.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic EVER!! I love these two so much, and have been mulling over writing about them for quite a while. These two give such great performances, but I wanted to dive deep into what Tim was thinking. I hope you guys like it!


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